


hearing his heart loud and clear

by somehowunbroken



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-05-06 02:51:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14632548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: Connor makes a point of having lunch with each of the guys, one-on-one, before they leave for the summer. When Ryan cancels last minute, well. Connor knows something is up.





	hearing his heart loud and clear

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [catching_paper_moons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catching_paper_moons/pseuds/catching_paper_moons) in the [PuckingRare2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PuckingRare2018) collection. 



> **Prompt:** Ryan accidentally somehow acquires a baby. Connor feels obligated to help take care of it.
> 
> this was such a joy to write! :D

_Hey something came up can't meet you for lunch_

_Actually if it's not a huge deal could you grab a bag of whole milk and bring it to me question mark_

Connor frowns down at his phone. Ryan has complained about how bad the speech-to-text thing on his phone is enough times that everyone knows how much he hates it, but he's clearly using it now, which means that something has gone really off the rails. Something bigger than him having to cancel their end-of-the-season lunch date, even, which is already saying something; Ryan's kind of unfailingly polite for a hockey player.

 _Just milk?_ Connor replies. Maybe Ryan's sick; milk's got vitamins and stuff in it. Connor's pretty sure he hasn't seen Ryan drinking milk for the fun of it before, but it would make sense if he wants to get more calcium or something.

Ryan hasn't replied by the time Connor gets to Shoppers, so Connor makes the command decision to get some cold meds, and also some extra vitamins. His mom swears by echinacea when she's sick, so he grabs that, too, and also some peanut butter Oreos. Ryan's cheat day food list is longer than maybe anyone Connor has ever met, but it's not hard to figure out what his actual favourites are. He brings his haul up to the cashier, who either doesn't know who he is or doesn't care, and soon enough he's on his way again.

Connor's phone buzzes when he's turning onto Ryan's street, so Connor parks and picks it up. It's Ryan, telling him that he doesn't need anything but the milk, and that the door's unlocked, so Connor should just come in when he gets there.

"Right, that's not making me worried at all," Connor mutters as he gets out and pockets his phone. They're usually all a little paranoid about security; even Ryan having a security guard masquerading as a pleasant doorman in the lobby of his building doesn't really make Connor feel like it's a great idea for Ryan to leave his door unlocked.

The noise is faint when Connor steps off the elevator, but it gets louder as Connor walks down the hall towards Ryan's door. Connor rolls his eyes as he pushes the door open; sick or not, Connor's definitely going to chirp Ryan for going on a _Sixteen and Pregnant_ binge in the middle of the day—

Except, Connor thinks, blinking as Ryan turns around. Except that the baby crying noises aren't coming from the television, apparently, because there's a screaming, angry baby sobbing into the crook of Ryan's neck.

"Milk?" Ryan asks, surveying Connor and his multitude of bags. "That's—he's hungry, I think. He's not wet, he doesn't smell bad, and he just _woke up_ like this, so I'm hoping making a bottle will calm him down. I would have gotten it myself, but I couldn't just leave him, and I don't keep milk around—"

"Right, yeah," Connor interrupts, heading for the kitchen. It's a little unnerving that Ryan, of all people, is reduced to rambling. Questions later, though; bottle first. "Do you have the powder stuff?"

"Yeah, it's," Ryan says, trailing after him. He's rubbing at the baby's back, but the baby isn't having any of it. He keeps screaming.

"Found it," Connor observes as he walks into the kitchen. There are half a dozen cans of it on the counter, beside a bunch of baby bottles. "I just follow the directions, right?"

"Right," Ryan says. "I mean, like. As far as I know. I haven't actually gotten to the bottle-making stage of this whole thing yet; he came with a couple, and then I spent his nap Googling, and…"

"Sit," Connor instructs, pointing at the table. "I'll make the bottle. See if he likes sitting any better."

The baby does not, in fact, appear to like sitting any better; he doesn't get any louder, but Connor honestly thinks that might be because he's already at peak volume more than anything else. Luckily, the whole bottle thing isn't rocket science, and watching his billet parents' friends do it a handful of times in Erie was enough preparation for mixing it together and warming it up. He shakes the bottle and splashes a little on the inside of his wrist; it feels a little warmer than room temperature, so he's calling it good for now.

"Here," Connor says, putting the bottle on the table in front of Ryan. "If he's not too pissed off to drink."

"He might be," Ryan mutters, easing the baby down from his shoulder. He's really, really tiny; his hands are still curled into little fists up by his head, and his whole face is scrunched up, eyes shut tightly as tears leak down his face. He turns his face away when Ryan pokes the bottle at his mouth, but Ryan tries again and again, bouncing him a little until he finally calms down enough to latch on and start eating.

Connor just watches for a minute as the baby eats. He's still clearly unhappy about whatever's going on in his little baby head, but it looks like the food is helping.

"So, uh," Ryan says quietly, and Connor looks up. "This is Henry."

"Henry," Connor echoes. "He's…"

Ryan shrugs, a barely-there movement of his shoulders, probably so he doesn't jostle Henry and make him start yelling again. "Mine, I guess."

"You guess," Connor repeats slowly.

Ryan shifts, but Henry makes a warning grumble, so he goes still pretty quickly. "Not like that," he says a little urgently, and Connor raises both eyebrows, just for emphasis. Ryan sighs. "My cousin Bethany called me, like, a week ago. She's in school up here, something with crazy high levels of physics. She'd been feeling weird, and when she went to the doctor…" He trails off. "It's pretty rare, but apparently it's possible for someone to not actually know they're pregnant? She didn't put on a ton of weight, and, uh. Everything else seemed… normal."

Connor can tell his own face is beet red; he's glad Ryan cut himself off before telling him about his cousin's menstrual cycle, because Connor's pretty sure that's where it was heading. "So she just… had a baby? And gave him to you?"

"She was panicking," Ryan says quietly, looking back down at Henry. He hasn't opened his eyes yet, but the tear tracks have mostly dried on his face. "Apparently finding out she was two weeks away from her due date was too much for her system to handle, and she had him, like, six hours later. We're close, and she called and said she didn't know what to do."

"And your first instinct was to help her out," Connor says, because he knows Ryan, knows that he'd drop everything if anyone needed him.

"She said she was debating whether or not to keep him or give him up for adoption," Ryan says. The bottle is pretty much empty, and Ryan tugs it out of Henry's mouth. He puts the baby against his shoulder and starts rubbing at his back. "I told her that I could look after him until she made the decision, and she was in the hospital for, like, a week after that, but she came over with him this morning, and by the time she left…"

"You said he's yours," Connor says. "Isn't there, like, a lot of paperwork? If you adopted him?"

Ryan smiles a little. "I signed a thing from her lawyer, and that sets it all in motion, more or less," he says. "There's more paperwork and home visits and a bunch of other stuff, but I have a good record and the money to provide for him, so they're probably not gonna say no."

"So you just," Connor starts, pausing as Henry lets out a series of little burps. "Uh. That's a lot of burping for such a tiny person."

"I've only had him for half a day and I can already tell you that babies are _so_ full of gross stuff, it's not even funny," Ryan informs him, laughing a little. "But, uh, yeah. I just… have a baby now."

"Wow," Connor says. "So, like. Congratulations, man."

Ryan laughs and looks down at Henry, who has Ryan's shirt in his mouth and appears to be out cold. "Thanks," he says, smiling softly, and—

Connor gulps a little and forces himself to smile. "You're welcome."

-0-

It turns out that Ryan has a lot of ideas on what he needs for Henry but hasn't had the chance to actually get any of it yet, so Connor takes the furniture list and puts the address of a baby store he's never heard of into his GPS, then sets off.

He calls his agent on the drive, because if he's learned anything after a few years in the NHL, it's that keeping his agent aware of everything that could become a story is the best way to keep things from turning into that story. "Don't freak out," he says when Jeff picks up the phone, and Jeff snorts.

"Now I'm definitely freaking out," he says, voice bland and dry. "What happened?"

"A buddy of mine has a brand-new baby," Connor replies, smiling. "It was pretty unexpected, and he's stuck without a bunch of stuff, so I'm going to a baby store and getting, like, a crib and a changing table and… a lot of things. I have a whole list."

"And you want me to make sure none of the tabloids run a story about your secret love baby," Jeff says, laughing a little. "Got it. Thanks for the heads up, and tell your friend I said good luck."

"Thanks, Jeff," Connor says as he hangs up. He considers calling his mom, because she's got all sorts of baby knowledge, but Ryan mentioned that he hasn't even told his own parents yet. Connor doesn't want to tell Ryan's secrets for him.

He gets to the baby store before he cracks and calls her anyway, and he pulls his Jays cap down and ducks his head, hoping he won't have to answer too many questions. He's hoping he can just get whatever he needs and get back out without hassle, but after a solid three minutes in the crib aisle, he has to admit defeat.

"Can I help you?" a middle-aged man asks, voice kind. Connor smiles at him out of habit, and the guy's eyes go wide. Connor sigs internally and hopes Jeff already has a plan in place.

"Uh, hi," Connor says, making a show out of looking around, even though there's nobody else in the crib aisle. "I… I'm Connor McDavid," he adds, as if he can't tell the guy knows.

"You sure are," the guy says, but his voice isn't any louder, and he isn't yelling for his coworkers. Maybe Connor can still make this work for him.

"I need some help," he says, laughing a little and gesturing to the cribs. "My buddy called me this morning. He, uh, it's kind of a long story? But he didn't know the baby was coming, and he doesn't have anything except, like, a diaper bag and a couple of bottles?" He laughs a little more, aiming for awkward and hitting it dead on, and shrugs. "I told him I'd come down here, pick up the stuff he needed, but man. I just have no idea. Could you, uh. Could you help me out, if it's not too much trouble? I want to make sure this kid has everything he needs."

"How old?" the man asks, straightening up a little and looking at the cribs.

"A week," Connor says. "He's really tiny. He was a little early, but he's doing okay."

"A week," the man says, smiling at Connor and holding his hand out. "I'm Trevor, Mr. McDavid. Why don't you show me that list you've got, and I'll help you get what you need? And I'll do my best to make sure you don't get hassled," he adds.

Connor shakes his hand and doesn't bother hiding even a little bit of his relief. "That would be great, Trevor, thanks," he says sincerely.

Trevor takes a look at Ryan's list and points out a couple of options; apparently baby furniture comes in style families, which is a whole new world that Connor had no idea existed. He tells Trevor he wants to get the one with the best safety ratings, because Ryan had mentioned them and Connor doesn't want Henry to touch anything that's less than the absolute best, and Trevor ends up selling him a dresser, changing table, crib, and rocker that all match. He gets some blankets and a few sets of crib sheets, and Trevor lights up like a kid in a candy store when Connor names a budget and asks him to help with toys and stuff. He spends some time wandering around the clothing section; Ryan had warned him against too much clothing, since Henry's gonna grow pretty fast, but Connor grabs a few packages of the little snap-up leotard things anyway, then sends Ryan a photo of a set of fuzzy cat pajamas that might actually be too cute to leave in the store. He drops a truly insane amount of money in the end, but he only ever has to interact with Trevor, and the stuff is going to be rush delivered later that afternoon with free assembly on the crib, so Connor will absolutely take it.

"Thank you so much," Connor says, giving Trevor a grateful smile. "Are you a fan of the team? I can't get you tickets soon, obviously, but I can for sure swing you a couple for the home opener if you'd be interested."

"Oh, that would be," Trevor says, his whole face lighting up before he visibly composes himself. "I mean, I'm a fan, but I was just doing my job."

"How about this," Connor says, looking around. He shrugs after a minute and pulls hs Jays cap off, grabbing the Sharpie he always keeps in his pocket when he's out and scribbling on the brim. He holds it out and Trevor looks like he's about to explode from joy when he takes it. "Your name is on my receipt, right?"

"Yeah," Trevor says, cradling the hat like Ryan had been cradling Henry.

"I'll put two tickets at will call for opening night under your name," Connor says, smiling. "No pressure. You can use them if you want, and if you don't, well, no harm done."

"Thank you," Trevor says, absolutely beaming. "You're a real class act, Mr. McDavid, and I hope your friend appreciates all the furniture."

Connor laughs. "I hope he appreciates the crib assembly," he says. "Thanks again."

It doesn't take long to load his bags into the car, and before much longer, he's back at Ryan's place. He grabs the bags and heads upstairs, walking quietly when he realises that he doesn't hear any crying sounds.

Ryan had given him a spare key before he'd left, so Connor eases the door open and peeks his head inside. He doesn't see or hear Ryan or Henry, so he steps quietly inside and locks the door behind him before he goes looking.

He has to bite his lip to keep from making some sort of mortifying noise when he looks into Ryan's bedroom. He has a dresser drawer on the floor next to the bed, and Henry's asleep in it; Ryan's on the bed, also asleep, face right on the edge of the mattress like he'd passed out watching Henry.

Well, Connor thinks as he retreats to the living room to wait for the furniture delivery. At least he knows why Ryan never answered about the cat pajamas.

-0-

Connor doesn't have a _thing_ for Ryan, no matter what Dylan says.

"This isn't gonna help your _thing_ for him," Dylan says just as Connor thinks it. It's a few days after the furniture shopping trip; Connor would have called sooner, but babies need _so much_ time and attention, and Connor's been at Ryan's far, far more than he's been home this week, and Connor just sighs and puts his head in his hands. "And don't even start with me, Davo. Your denial isn't gonna get any better in the face of him having a baby."

"Henry," Connor corrects automatically.

"Right, Henry," Dylan says. "Ryan and Henry. The guy you've got this super-huge thing for and his tiny, tiny, adorable baby."

"You're not helping," Connor mutters.

Dylan laughs loud enough that it echoes a little over their FaceTime call. "Wait, was I supposed to be helping?"

"I'm gonna hang up and call Marns," Connor threatens weakly, not moving towards his phone at all.

"Sure," Dylan says breezily. "Go ahead. He and I love comparing notes on your thing for Nuge."

"It's not," Connor starts, but his phone beeps and cuts him off. _Everything's okay over here but if you have a minute could you swing by? With some wipes maybe._ "Uh. I have to go."

Dylan, the asshole, just starts laughing, and he's still laughing when Connor sticks his tongue out and hangs up on him.

"So, Henry's ready for his first bath," Ryan says when Connor walks in, wipes in hand. "I'm, like, reasonably sure I can do this, but I wanted an extra set of hands on deck just in case."

Connor's eyes go a little wide. "Oh my god, how do you wash someone so tiny?"

"There's a Youtube video," Ryan says, nodding at the sofa. "C'mon, let's watch, and then we can try it out."

The baby on the screen seems bigger than Henry, not that that's hard, but the woman doing the bath assures them that it's fine for newborns and narrates everything she's doing as she does it. Connor leans forward and hits replay when the video finishes, and by the time they make it through again, Henry's starting to wriggle a little against Ryan's chest.

"He's waking up," Ryan says, adjusting him a little. "Are we ready for this?"

"Let's do it," Connor says with a lot more confidence than he feels.

Ryan leads the way to the kitchen; there's a baby bather in the sink, just like there had been in the video, and Connor approaches it cautiously. There's a soft-looking washcloth folded next to the sink, and Connor nods a little before turning to Ryan. "Ready when you are."

"Here," Ryan says, and then he's carefully peeling Henry away from his chest and nudging him against Connor, folding Connor's arms up around him to cradle him in place. It's over before Connor has a chance to protest, and then Henry is looking up at him with a little frown on his face. It's his default expression, Connor knows; he's been around Henry every day since Ryan got him, and he's no expert, but he knows that this face isn't likely to lead to a screaming meltdown.

Ryan turns the sink on and messes around with the temperature for a few minutes before apparently getting it perfect. "Okay, time to get him undressed," he says, turning back to Connor. His eyes go a little wide. "Uh."

"What?" Connor asks defensively. "I'm holding him just like you put him in my arms! He's not even crying!"

"No, you're fine," Ryan says hastily. He turns towards the table, where there's a towel spread out. "Can you lay him down on it? Just go slowly and you'll be fine."

"Sure," Connor says warily. He walks slowly, then mostly just leans down until Henry is laying on the towel. He wiggles his arms out gently, and Henry makes an indignant little squawking noise as Connor stands back up.

Ryan snickers. "He'd rather have you holding him," he translates as he starts unsnapping Henry's baby shirt-leotard thing. "So we're just gonna, like, pour some water over him and make sure it doesn't get in his face too much, then get him nice and dry and back into clean clothes. Not too hard, right?"

"Right," Connor agrees, watching Ryan pull the tabs on Henry's diaper. "Sounds easy."

Henry sighs, a squeaky little thing, and starts peeing as soon as Ryan pulls the diaper away.

"Yikes," Ryan says, alarmed. He covers Henry with the diaper, but there's already pee on the floor and a little on Connor's shirt, and Connor can't help it: he starts laughing. "Shit, sorry!"

"No, it's," Connor says, still laughing. He pulls his shirt off and throws it on the floor, sopping the rest of it up. "I'm borrowing one of yours, and you can just wash this one."

"Sorry," Ryan repeats, sounding sort of mortified. "You can borrow one, sure, but maybe wait until after the bath. Just in case."

"Yeah, good call," Connor says, still mostly amused. "Is he done?"

Ryan bends over and lifts the edge of the diaper up, glancing in. "For now."

"In the bath, then," Connor says, kicking the dirty shirt out of the way. "You want to pour water or cover his face?"

"You pour," Ryan decides as he lowers Henry into the water. "I have a little more practice with keeping him supported and stuff. I'll do the wriggly part, you just get him wet."

Connor nods and stands next to Ryan, waiting for his go-ahead before filling the cup with water and gently pouring it over Henry's legs. He makes a noise, clearly startled, and his arm flails out a little, but he doesn't cry. It's a good sign, so Connor does it again, smiling when Henry makes the same interested noise and moves his arm again.

"Pour a little over his hands," Ryan suggests, sounding excited. "This is the first thing other than food and being held that he hasn't hated, I think."

Connor grins and gets a little more water in the cup, poking gently at Henry's hand until his fingers flex. Connor pours the water into Henry's hand, and Henry grasps at it, turning his wrist back and forth until the stream of water stops.

Ryan laughs. "Do you like the water, kiddo?"

"Look at him," Connor says, laughing along with Ryan as he refills the cup. "Let me try his other hand."

Henry likes the water just as much on his other hand, and they waste almost five minutes just letting him feel it, pouring it faster and slower over his hands and his legs before Ryan grudgingly puts a stop to it. "He's not supposed to just chill around naked," he says, almost apologetic. "He could get sick, y'know? He's still so little."

"Okay, then let's get his hair done and then get him all dry and warm," Connor says, filling the cup again. Ryan has his hand shading Henry's eyes already, but Connor lays his free hand over Ryan's, concentrating as he slowly pours the water over Henry's head. It flattens his hair, and Connor laughs a little as Henry tries to move his head with the sensation. "Easy, buddy. Almost done."

He pours a little more water over Henry's head, then glances up to let Ryan know that he's finished, except Ryan's already looking back at him. "Uh," Ryan says, finally breaking their eye contact and looking down at Henry. "Let's get him dry and see if he's up for a nap."

"Yeah," Connor says, standing and taking a step back. "I'll, uh. I'll clean up the mess he made on the floor while you get him dressed."

Ryan nods as he lifts Henry out of the bather. He's not looking at Connor, but Connor can see the tops of his ears are turning pink. "Just grab a shirt out of the dresser when you're done," he says, walking to the towel-covered table. "Or the hamper. It's clean, I just haven't gotten a chance to fold it yet."

"Right," Connor says. He turns and starts rinsing out the baby bather, mostly so he doesn't have to watch Ryan carefully patting his son dry and picking out pajamas.

Fine, he admits to the Dylan in his head as he grabs the soap and squirts some into the bather. Fine, maybe he has a _thing_ for Ryan.

-0-

Connor collapses onto Ryan's sofa when Henry finally goes down for a nap; apparently the bath adventure had been so exciting that he hadn't wanted to go to sleep, and it's taken Ryan and Connor's combined efforts and almost an hour to convince him that naps are a great plan. It's kind of amazing that he was able to fight sleep off for that long, but it's also exhausting. Connor finds himself wondering how much more tiring it'll be when Henry gets old enough to stay awake for longer periods of time, then firmly shuts that train of thought down. He's just lending a hand, he reminds himself. Just for a little while, until Ryan gets the hang of fatherhood.

"Hey," Ryan says. They had both kind of just stayed where they'd fallen onto the sofa, and Ryan's knee is tucked up against Connor's, so Connor feels it when Ryan nudges him. "Thanks for the assist."

"Any time," Connor says, smiling. "He's great, Ryan. And, hey, you don't have to do it on your own, right? I'm around."

"That's, uh," Ryan says, giving him half a smile. "Yeah, you're here, and, like. My timing sucks, mostly, but…"

And then he's leaning in and kissing Connor, just a quick, chaste press of their lips, before he's pulling back. The pink has spread all the way across his cheekbones, and Connor feels stunned with the sudden hope that maybe Ryan has a Connor _thing_ , too.

"That's not just because you're thanking me for helping you out, right?" Connor asks. His voice is remarkably calm for how much he feels like he's flipping out on the inside. "Because if that's all it was, you can have it back."

Ryan laughs. "How would I take it back, huh?"

"Do you want to?" Connor asks, trying not to sound desperate.

"No," Ryan says, still smiling. "I mean, look. Things are…" He laughs a little and gestures around, and Connor looks around. There's baby stuff everywhere; there are little blankets and shirts, a playpen, the dresser that Connor bought but they haven't had the chance to put together in its box leaning against the wall. There's a fuzzy pillow mat thing on the floor with cartoon dogs on it, and Connor smiles at it before looking back up at Ryan. "Things are crazy," Ryan says. "I have a _baby_. I was waiting until the offseason to maybe take my chance with you, and now…"

"And now you have a baby," Connor says when Ryan trails off. Ryan looks up at him, faint smile on his face, and does a kind of nod-shrug combo. "And I'm sitting on the sofa with you after we gave him his first bath, and he peed on me, and it's the summer but I'm still in Edmonton, Ryan. I'm thinking about whether we can get the dresser together without waking him up, and if I should go back and get the fuzzy cat pajamas I saw, and…" He stops and takes a deep breath. "You should maybe, uh. Still take that chance, unless having Henry changed your mind about wanting to."

Ryan's eyes are a little wide, but he's smiling at Connor. "I'd say you don't know what you're getting into, but I think I've only spent, like, ten more hours total with Henry than you have," he says, sounding a little breathless, a little giddy. "And I'm not asking you to move in and be, like, his other dad this very second, but…"

"But you asked me to come help you with bath time," Connor says. He can tell he's probably mirroring Ryan's expression right back at him: happy, a little unsure, very much willing to see where things go from here. "And I came over, and I'm… I'll keep coming over."

"You'll keep coming over," Ryan says, and now his smile is so wide that Connor can't do anything but lean over and kiss him, get a hand on his thigh for balance and lean in more, making sure that Ryan gets the message.

"I'm not going anywhere," Connor says, quiet but adamant. Then he blinks a little. "Or, like. I'll have to go back to Toronto a couple times, probably, but I'm not going anywhere _forever_."

Ryan laughs and leans back against the sofa, smiling up at Connor. "I get to teach him how to talk," he says teasingly. "I want him to understand, like, metaphors and stuff."

"Very specific," Connor says, rolling his eyes. "Fine, but I call tying his shoes. Your method is weird."

"Bunny ears are the way to go," Ryan protests, but he's laughing again as Connor leans back in for another kiss.


End file.
